


Coming Back

by nan00k



Series: Building Something New [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 12:58:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8057299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nan00k/pseuds/nan00k
Summary: McCree is struck down during a mission. Or that’s what Hanzo sees. Meanwhile, McCree is reunited with some ghosts.(kinda-sorta sequel to Considerable Grace.)





	Coming Back

**Author's Note:**

> Basically a few months after Hanzo and McCree start dating, a normal mission goes slightly awry.
> 
> Disclaimer: overwatch © blizzard. I just wrote this.  
> Warnings: m/m, McHanzo, swearing, sad old people

**Ilios, Greece**

“One day, we need to go to a carnival. A real big one. I remember sneakin’ off and hidin’ under all the stalls. Stole a bunch of them dolls and candy prizes, right out under the noses of the poor omnic runnin’ the place.”

Hanzo sighed, notching another arrow. Something explode near him, rattling the glossy white building beneath his feet. 

“I’m serious,” Jesse says, over the comms, his voice as breezy as the warm Greek air. “The food, the smells, the rides--it’d be great.”

“Can you be serious?” Hanzo asks, aiming up one of the omnics below.

“I’m as serious as pie, darlin’. Wouldn’t you want me to win you a prize at one of them stalls? Won’t even steal one. I’d win ‘em up. ‘Course I guess that’d be cheatin’.”

Hanzo releases the arrow. It strikes the omnic in the head, sending it sprawling into the chaos of the battlefield. He gets up and darts to another position, sighing. 

“Hanzooo,” Jesse calls, with enough irksome whine to his tone that Hanzo grimaces.

“We are a little busy,” he says.

“But later. I saw a sign for a carnival. We gotta go.”

“We do not ‘ _ gotta’ _ do anything,” Hanzo says. “Except survive this mission. Which you are in danger of failing if you don’t pay attention.”

He can practically feel Jesse’s warm chuckle over the comms. “Aw, shucks, darlin’. You’re gonna make me blush with all that concern.”

Then, Hanzo hears the fanning shot of Peacekeeper and he sighs for a third time. Jesse, despite being prone to chatting during battles, is undeniably capable of handling himself just fine.

They are in Greece, in a beautiful coastal city that’s seen new growth and construction. It’s only been four months since the recall of Overwatch, only two since Hanzo joined them. Much has happened and Hanzo often wonders how much of it is a delayed dream.

Not that fighting omnics is dreamlike. He dodges a barrage of bullets, using the stark white buildings surrounding the massive courtyard for cover. They lucked out with this insurgency of rogue omnics; the section of town is uninhabited for construction. 

It is just McCree, Genji, Tracer and Lúcio with him. Their team is still new and learning its strengths, but Hanzo feels confident with every mission they undertake. Talon is a constant foe and the threat of the United Nations lashing out at the newly resurrected heroes is a real one. But they go out when needed and in most cases, they do well.

He kneels behind a wall to notch another arrow. He looks up and spots a flash of red. Jesse, on the roof, grins down at him.

Hanzo, despite himself, smiles back.

Of all the changes he has experience since accepting Genji’s challenge to follow him, getting his brother back was the most important. 

Meeting Jesse and building something else was a close second.

“ _ Car-ni-val _ ,” Jesse mouths to him, pointing with his thumb to the west. 

Hanzo arches an eyebrow and shakes his head. Jesse, with great exaggeration, throws his arms up and lurches to the other side of the roof. He starts to fire with what seems like haphazard intent, but Hanzo knows he’s hitting every target. Hanzo knows he ought to be annoyed, but there is something inherently...cute...about Jesse’s faked temper tantrums.

Or not so faked. Jesse makes a face at him before leaping over to the other side of the tiled roof to fire at more enemies. Hanzo rolls his own eyes and fires another shot through an omnic helm.

“Oi, enough flirting,” Tracer shouts over the line, sounding upbeat, as usual. “We’ve still got quite a bit of a mess to clean up over here. Get to work, boys.”

“We’ve almost got the courtyard cleared,” Lúcio said, whooping every so often as he blasted a few mechs toward ledges, letting Tracer have easy access to shoot them down permanently. 

Genji, likely darting between buildings all around that sector of the city, chimed in, “It looks that way. I am seeing no stragglers.”

“Hey, I’m doin’ my fair share,” Jesse says. He takes out another two omnics as proof.

“Then why aren’t you down here?” Tracer asks.

“I’m provin’ that I’m just as good a snipe-shot as Mr. Shimada,” Jesse easily replies.

Hanzo follows an ominic that is close on Lúcio's tail and takes it out from behind. Lúcio whoops again, skating clear and blasting another straight off the ledge, out over the blue ocean view.

“Show off,” Jesse says.

“That is not showing off,” Hanzo says. He aims with a scatter shot; Lúcio is far enough away now. He fires.

He takes out three omnics at once. Tracer laughs gleefully, darting over the mess. Hanzo hears Genji chuckle somewhere and Jesse whistles.

“Nice shootin’, darlin’,” he croons.

Hanzo looks up, to chide him, because Tracer has a point. Pet names on a battlefield was asking for trouble.

As he does, there is a terrible sound that echoes across the noisy courtyard, a crack of a rifle, and he sees Jesse jerk to the side.

_ Snipers _ , Hanzo realizes, as he watches Jesse crumple off the side of the roof peak, out of sight.

He’s moving without realizing, ducking under an omnic that found his hiding spot, and launching up the white plaster wall to the next level. 

“McCree is down,” he says over the comm. His voice is ragged and his throat dry as dust.

“Where?” he hears Tracer ask.

“West side of your position.” He’s climbing up the back veranda of the building Jesse had been standing on, his bow slung across his back. He’s a prime target for the sniper there, but he needs to get to the roof. “Sniper, possibly more than one. He’s been hit.”

He does not think about Jesse falling off the roof or Jesse with a bullet hole in his skull. He cannot think about either thing.

There’s chaos on the comm, mostly from the fight. Tracer assures him that Lúcio is on his way, that he should just get to Jesse and cover him. Hanzo doesn’t reply. He’s clearing the final edge of the roof and jumping to the side he had seen Jesse.

Jesse is not on the roof. His hat is on the roof, tossed on the edge, discarded. 

Hanzo nearly throws himself off in the attempt to spot the cowboy. He is already picturing a crumpled red serape smashed into the pavement two stories down. He pictures the blood and the broken body--

And finds nothing.

Hanzo leans out into the open air, staring straight downward. There is nothing on the street. There is no blood. No body.

Jesse is gone.

“Hanzo, where are you?” Tracer asks. Even as a seasoned Overwatch agent, she sounds panicked.

“He’s gone,” he says, without thinking.

Tracer inhales sharply, a sound of distress. Hanzo forces himself to add, “I cannot find him. He isn’t on the ground or on the roof.”

It makes no sense. There’s a single window below him, but it’s closed and flat against the plaster wall. There are no places Jesse could have taken cover in the street either, if he were injured and trying to hide from enemy fire. 

Hanzo isn’t panicking, yet, but it’s close. 

“Everyone regroup at my location,” Tracer shouts, still a commanding officer on a field with all her laughter and smiles, because despite her temperament, she has experience and rank on them all, except for Jesse. “All targets cleared?”

A chorus of affirmatives ring out. Hanzo can only stare at the road beneath him. It’s unhelpfully empty, as if it merely swallowed Jesse up.

Their escape route is a transport that’s en route, according to Tracer, but Hanzo had no intention of getting on board.

“We have to find him,” he says, without preamble as he reached the others.

“Omnics don’t take hostages,” Tracer says, brow furrowed behind her goggles.

Lúcio is equally worried, perhaps more so, more of a medic than his age revealed sometimes. “You saw him get hit? Where?”

“Yes. Some kind of projectile. I heard the shot as well.” Hanzo took a deep breath, steadying himself. “If he’s been shot, it was in the upper body or neck.”

“Ooooh, that’s  _ so _ not good,” Lúcio says, making a pained face. “We need to spread out, to search--”

“Negative, we have to evacuate the area before the local authorities come,” Tracer says, grimacing. “Winston’s already got interference running, but we’ll be spotted in a jiff if we stick around.”

“We cannot just  _ leave-- _ ” Hanzo began, furious at the idea.

They all jump in surprise when Genji lands near them. His vents are sizzling from extended use, something akin to panting as Hanzo has figured out. His younger brother wastes no time.

“There was a truck,” he says. He isn’t breathless, but Hanzo can see the steam from his back. He must have gone as fast he could back to them.

“ _ What _ ?” 

“There was a truck leaving this area. It wasn’t us,” Genji says. He looks at all of them. “This place, it’s all new development. There aren’t any locals. I failed to see who was inside, but they were moving fast.”

“Then…” Tracer begins, bewildered.

It’s clear and obvious to Hanzo. He grits his teeth in anger--and fear. 

Someone had shot and grabbed Jesse. It had been so quick and well planned, he could only imagine it was Talon. The thought of that Reaper creature made his blood run cold.

His allies, just as quick to assume, had slightly different reactions.

“Who the heck would wanna take  _ McCree _ ?” Lúcio asks, as if the idea were ridiculous. Tracer and Genji look at the young man with their own incredulity while Hanzo is already turning around and moving.

He is going to catch that truck before it even leaves the city.

**0000**

McCree comes to groggy attention with the sounds of two people arguing over his head.

“Why the hell did you have to hit him off?” A man, annoyed, loud even while whispering. His age is exposed in his rough voice.

“He wasn’t getting off the roof and you said we were out of time,” says a woman, irritable. Her voice is scratchy but warm. Close. Familiar. “I had to do something.”

“If I hadn’t been there to catch--”

“Yes, yes, tell me about how you are a flawless leader when it comes to strategy.” 

He wants to rest, because he feels like he’s been tossed around and he knows it’s gonna hurt once he wakes up. But there’s a niggling of something wrong and as he latches onto that feeling, it becomes clearer why.

Greece. Mission. Hanzo. Roof. There is a shot and he’s falling.

McCree fights the lull of sleep as his self-preservation kicks in. He has no idea who’s lap he’s laying his head on, but he knows it’s not Hanzo’s and for that reason, he’s not going to just let it be.

He opens his eyes with a wince, seeing a bright warehouse ceiling overhead. His hisses at the stiffness of his neck and the sound alerts the two strangers.

“Ah, he wakes.” The woman leans over him, shielding the distant lights. One eye covered by a patch, the other unmistakably unique. “Always was a heavy sleeper, weren’t you, cowboy?”

He stares at her face, not breathing, unable to anything. He can’t blink. He’s trapped in his own body, looking at her. 

He remembers calloused hands feeling warm and soft on his own, helping him off a battle field or patching up another bullet hole in his gut. He remembers her crooning encouragement in Arabic next to his ear as Reyes tied off the stump of his arm, her touch as gentle as a feather tickling the fire of pain that consumed him.

McCree’s breath comes back in a sharp jump. Ana Amari watches him with an older face, just one eye revealed while the other is behind a patch, but it’s her all the same.

“Easy, now, kid,” he hears the old man say, but the moment McCree’s eyes dart to the source, he regrets it. 

“No,” he says, rejecting it so fiercely, all his nerves fire at once. “No, no--”

“Easy, Jesse--” Ana says--not Ana, it can’t be, because she’s dead, she’s gone--

“ _ Get off!” _

He’s the one who goes flying as he practically jumps off her lap. He hits the cement a second later and he’s scrambling away from them both. Two ghosts eye him down and primal fear tells him to  _ go _ .

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he hisses.

“Jesse,” the closest ghost says, his name softened by accent, by honeyed warmth only a mother could offer.

“Go away. Get gone.” His teeth chatter, he’s so cold. His hands get tangled in his serape, tripping him backwards as he runs from the dead. “ _ Fuckin’ hell _ .”

His back collides with the sharp edge of a wooden crate. Breath strangles in his throat as he stares down the two specters. The Strike Commander watches him, at ease, misleadingly solid as he tilts his head.

“We’re real. Not dead,” Jack Morrison says. His hair is stark white and he’s an old man, like death wasn’t kind enough to leave his appearance be when it took him.

“You’re dead. You’re both dead,” McCree says, gasping it out. He can hear his heart pounding, punching through his chest. “No amount of wishin’ is gonna sell me otherwise. Or am I dead too? Is that how this goes? Ghosts of my past--”

Ana lashes out with her fist, knocking his head with a quick rap of her knuckles. It hurts as real as a punch and McCree jerks back away. He isn’t even sure how she could reach him. The distance between them is suddenly shorter, now with his panic pushed aside by the slight pain.

“Ow!”

“Am I a ghost, cowboy? Eh?” Ana demands, her single visible eye narrowed and her voice edged with anger. “You can cover your eyes and ears all you want, but I can hit you just as much. Can the dead hit? Can they?”

Maybe not a ghost, but maybe a hallucination. He’s had those before, after using Deadeye, or when he just never got enough sleep. McCree moves back further from her, but can’t tear his eyes away.

“You’re dead,” he says. His voice is hoarse to his own ears. He feels like the ground is about to swallow him whole.

“We both decided to make our deaths exaggerated, it seems,” Morrison says, deep scars on his face marring his lips and nose. He nods his head to one of the crates. “Sit down if you want real answers, kid. We ain’t got a lot of time for much talking.”

They are in a warehouse, full of wooden crates marked for overseas shipments. McCree tries to focus on what that means and where exactly they are. He needs to get back to his team, to get out of there, but--

He’s shaking as he sits up. He can’t stop staring at them. Morrison moves and sits down while Ana remains poised with her back against another crate. Both wait for him to make the next move and McCree can still hear the blood roaring in his ears as he stares back.

Slowly, McCree gets up and sits back on the crate he ran into. He’s shaking, but the fog of panic is dissipating the longer he stares at them. Realization is slow, but painful. Maybe more painful than seeing ghosts.

“You left this whole time.” It makes even less sense than them all being dead and in some kind of purgatory. The only reason McCree dares to believe it is because he’s certain there’d be no in between for him after he kicked it.

“It was better that way,” Morrison says, like he’s excusing himself from a missed birthday party or company picnic. “I had to go underground. People betrayed the organization and I needed to find out who.”

“ _ You _ , maybe,” McCree says. His voice is shaking as he looks over at Ana, who’s expression is guarded. “You? Ana, you--”

“I what?” she challenges.

McCree wants to hit her. Scream at her. He swears loudly, angrily. 

“Goddamn, Ana. Goddamn. Fareeha all but  _ buried _ you. She’s the only one who thought you were still out there, but she’s done plenty of mournin’ all the same.  _ Goddamn _ ,” he swore again, slamming his fist onto the crate beneath him. “What the hell were you thinkin’?!”

“I left to protect her,” Ana says. “To protect all of you.”

“The  _ hell _ is that kind of bullshit excuse--”

“Mind your tongue, boy,” she snaps, like he’s still nineteen and running around with her own daughter. Her eye is narrowed again, hands curled around the bulk of her gun. He knows her body language and knows she’s upset. “Don’t assume you know my reasons for things. It was never simple--”

“To hell with your reasons!” He stands up and moves away from them both. He feels like his skin is crawling. “ _ Shit _ !”

The urge to leave is overwhelming. If they are real, he doesn’t want to see them. They left and people mourned them. McCree--he--

McCree whirls around, glaring at them both.

“Why the hell did you grab me like that?” he asks, suddenly annoyed for a whole different reason. “Offa goddamn roof?”

He knows Ana and her tricks. It had to be a dart, not a bullet. He feels his swollen neck and scowls. He sure as hell remembers what those felt like.

“It was the best shot I had,” Ana says, shrugging, guiltless. A familiar expression, had it not been on an old woman’s face. Her anger recedes like the tide. Just like he remembers.

“I remember gettin’ hit and then fallin’. Shit, did I--”

“I grabbed you, out the window beneath you, before you pancaked,” Morrison suddenly says. He gives McCree an odd stare. “You got fat, kid.”

“Go to hell, Morrison,” McCree says, irritated. He looks up at the empty ceiling of the warehouse. “Where are we?”

“We are still in Ilios. Only a few kilometers away from where you and your team were fighting,” Ana says. She chuckles lowly. “Funny.  _ Your team _ .”

McCree stops. “What?”

“I find Jack fighting other ghosts and all of a sudden, we start to hear rumors. Ripples.” Ana sounds amused, but there’s that old glint in her eye that makes McCree a little nervous. “A new team built.”

He knows there’s no point in lying. “The recall,” he admits.

“It’s happening, then,” Morrison says, glancing at Ana, who looks at him. Neither reveal much in doing so.

“If you came and knocked on our door, maybe you woulda found out yourselves,” McCree snaps.

“We can’t just walk back in there, Jesse,” Morrison begins to say. “You don’t know--”

“I don’t want to know!” McCree shouts. He jabs his finger at him, at that old scarred face that haunts his nightmares just as much as Reyes and the rest of their squad does. “We all trusted you. You and Reyes and-- _ shit _ . I can’t believe this.”

Morrison crosses his arms against his chest. “If you want an apology, I ran outta those. We needed to make sure it was legit. That your little gang was serious.”

McCree seethes. “A goddamn message woulda done better than this.”

“You’re the only one I thought we could trust,” Morrison says, his calmness almost enough to pacify the vitriol building in McCree’s chest. “I know you, kid. You woulda burned it to the ground if it were another Blackwatch or Talon. You’re stubborn as hell, but I know you wouldn’t get involved with this unless it was real. I just needed to hear it from you directly.”

Part of McCree wonders if this is a test. Or if it’s a different sort of manipulation. He knows that Morrison would never go with Talon, though. His damn morals--the ones that ripped Overwatch in two--would never allow it. 

“It is real,” McCree finally says, through grit teeth.

“Good.”

So much of it just didn’t make sense. The parts that did infuriated him. “What about Lena? Or Angela?” he asks. “I ain’t the only one from the old team. Reinhardt and--”

“You want to know why I left?” Morrison asks, causing McCree to snap his jaw shut.

No, he doesn’t. McCree thinks he already does and he hates it. He hates thinking about it. He hates all the nightmares he’s had since he figured most of it out, at least the parts before the new revelation 

Overwatch failed for lots of reasons. McCree knew something sick had taken over. Maybe even when he had still been there. He had seen the ugly jealousy taking over Reyes whenever Overwatch and perfect Jack Morrison got more fame or glory. He had seen the paranoia settling in over both division leaders, where close camaraderie had slowly become bitter resentment.

A terror strike on the heart of the U.N. and of Overwatch hadn’t been some kinda cruel twist of fate. McCree hadn’t needed a ghost to tell him that. 

Morrison tells him anyway.

“I left because I don’t trust a damn soul on this planet,” he says. “I got burned, kid. I got burned bad. By the very people I thought I was protecting and who I thought were protecting me. You don’t walk back to that.”

“We were your team,” McCree says.  _ We were your family _ .

Morrison nods. “Yeah. You were.”

There’s more to it and McCree knows it. He doesn’t get a response from Ana, who stares out at nothing during all of it, like she’s got her own story to tell that she wasn’t telling yet. 

None of it makes sense, not yet, but part of McCree doesn’t want it to. 

“Then why trust me?” he asks, the sparks dying inside him. God, he’s tired.

“Like I said,” Morrison says. “Out of everyone left, you’d be the last one to follow false idols.”

“You’re a bastard,” McCree says, but without the anger, because he’s suddenly exhausted and he can only bring himself to sag back onto the crate to keep him from falling onto the ground.

Silence falls and none of them move. He wonders if they would just sit there til the sun froze over, but he quickly doesn’t have to worry about that, because there’s a loud screech of metal, like a heavy warehouse gate being yanked upwards. 

Ana’s sharp eyes are on the far end of the warehouse, where there is a series of noises, but neither she or Morrison react with great alarm. All three of them know McCree’s team has found them.

An arrow--target seeking, McCree recognizes right away--is suddenly embedded in one of the crates piled high around them. 

Morrison has his gun up higher, causal, like he’s not that concerned arrows are already flying.

“What was that?” he asks.

McCree snorts. “That would be Hanzo.”

“Who the heck is Hanzo?” Morrison asks.

Maybe it’s his exhaustion, or maybe it’s just pure spite, but McCree manages to look at both them with a cocky grin and says: “My boyfriend.”

Ana’s eyebrow goes up. Morrison is impassive, which only makes McCree grin a little more.

He moves around them, where there’s a gap in the maze of boxes, and can’t help but smile when Hanzo is already there, bow raised. His smile falters when Hanzo’s gaze goes from him straight back to Ana and Morrison. The bow and a scatter arrow are aimed at them. Hanzo’s expression is murderous.

“Hanzo, wait!” McCree says, stepping more in front of him, realizing the danger. “Wait, it’s okay. Hot damn, you got here fast--”

“Are you injured?” Hanzo asks, more a command than a simple question. His aim and gaze are unmoved.

“I’m fine, Hanzo, please, darlin’, put the--”

Hanzo raises the bow higher, trying to take aim at the motionless duo watching. “Get out of the way!”

“No, Hanzo, wait!” McCree holds his hands up higher, waving them desperately. “Don’t shoot them!”

“They kidnapped you!” Hanzo shouts.

McCree makes a face. “I ain’t kidnapped.”

Hanzo’s glare finally shifts to him. His face speaks volumes of his opinion. 

“ _ I _ do not get  _ kidnapped _ ,” McCree says, flustered now. The way Hanzo says it makes it sound so--so--

“You were abducted,” Hanzo snaps.

“I was  _ not _ . Do I look the type to--?”

“Enough!” Hanzo jerks his attention and his arrow back to Morrison and Ana. “ _ Who _ are you?”

“Name’s Jack Morrison.” Morrison says it without hesitation. He nods his head back to Ana, who hasn’t even stood up. “This is Ana Amari.”

Hanzo stares at Morrison like he would an insect. McCree winces.

“You were in the original Overwatch,” Hanzo says, with surprising understanding. The bow does not lower.

“Did your homework, then,” Morrison says, arching a brow. He looks beyond Hanzo, as if the arrow doesn’t exist. “Where’s the rest of the crew?”

Hanzo’s jaw tenses. “What was your purpose in all of this? Why did you take McCree?” 

McCree wants to tell him to stand down again, but the words die in his throat. He isn’t that floored that Hanzo came after him, or with that kind of intensity, but it’s still disarming. 

Morrison’s eyes snap back to Hanzo. Judging. Weighing his options.

“To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure,” he says at length. “Maybe it was this after all.”

McCree scoffs. “Still a sonovabitch, Morrison.”

“Glad to know I haven’t changed, then.”

He has changed. He’s old, he’s jaded, he’s different. McCree wants to launch those things at him like accusations, but there’s no point. He looks away, angry, but he’s more concerned about getting them all out of there in one piece. That's about as much as he can deal with.

“Let’s just go,” he says, to Hanzo, who looks over at him sharply. McCree offers a weak smile. “If they wanna come, I don’t think it’ll cause much harm.”

Hanzo looks like he doesn’t believe that a bit. McCree sighs. There is only a mild form of relief when Hanzo’s arrow dips a fraction, like he’s still ready to use it if he has to, but he trusts McCree enough not to fire without cause.

It’s that kinda trust that makes McCree feel warm and fuzzy, but also immediately broken up inside.

He turns, to tell Morrison and Ana to follow them out, if they want to really see what the new Overwatch was becoming, but they are abruptly discovered.

Lúcio's whoop from somewhere outside the warehouse is followed by Tracer’s sudden appearance on top of the crates. Her guns are raised, but the smile on her face shatters when she sees Morrison and she lets out a squeak when she spots Ana.

“ _ Oh _ !”

“Hello, Lena,” Ana says, eyes and smile gentle in a way that could be blown away by a harsh breeze. Lena stares at her with shining eyes, her mouth a circle of a voiceless shout.

McCree can’t help it: he laughs.

**0000**

**Watchpoint: Gibraltar**

Hanzo waits by Jesse’s favorite smoking spot on base while they talk. The older members of Overwatch--including Genji--fawn and yell over the two ghosts on their doorstep. There are tears, mostly angry, some happy. The new faces, like Lúcio, are plagued with confusion and caution. 

Winston locks himself, Jesse, Amari, Morrison and a few of the older members in his lab to talk. Hanzo knows it is not his place to pry on the details; there is much to figure out for them all. If Amari and Morrison join the recall, there is no telling how it could affect the dynamics of the team.

He is more concerned with how it will be affecting Jesse.

The anger over the abduction fades in comparison to the unease and bitterness he feels toward the old soldiers and what they bring. Their reappearance seems selfish and misguided to him. Jesse is clearly upset with them, but he is also terribly happy they are alive. Hanzo can see it clearly.

What he can also see is tension. Jesse told him before that he has nightmares over those he has lost from Overwatch. Hanzo now knows at least two of the faces that haunt his lover. He cannot help but distrust them and blame them for those emotional damages.

Watching the fading sunset over the ocean, Hanzo knows he must keep it to himself. For now. He can at least try, anyway.

About an hour after the meeting started, Jesse appears in a rush, knowing where to find Hanzo out of habit. He is missing his serape, left behind in Mercy’s lab after getting a post-mission exam. He has his hat back, recovered by Genji before they even found Jesse, who was wise enough to remember what Hanzo did not, that Jesse would want it back immediately when they found him.

Hanzo waits for him patiently, knowing time and space must be up to Jesse for now. He surmises Jesse left the meeting early. 

“Sorry, darlin’,” Jesse says, smiling in a strained way as he comes up closer. “This is gonna take all night to get things settled. I figured they don’t need me for the whole chat.”

It’s a clear sign that he’s still riled up with tension when Jesse doesn’t lean in to kiss Hanzo’s cheek like he normally does when coming to greet him. It’s a troublesome habit in public, but Hanzo nearly misses it in the quiet shelter of the look out. He doesn’t complain, however, because he can see just how worn down his partner is feeling.

“They are untrustworthy,” he says instead, which is a kind statement compared to what he wanted to call them.

Jesse sighs; it’s a heavy sound that seems to deflate something in the broad-shouldered man. 

“Ten years ago, I mighta hit you for sayin’ that,” he says with a humorless smile. “Ana and Jack, they practically raised me. Well. They raised up the man lost inside the stupid kid I was, back in the day. Them and Reyes.”

There is an unspoken debt weighing down on Jesse; Hanzo can practically see it. He focuses on the other name.

“Reyes?” he repeats.

“Gabriel Reyes,” Jesse says. The name is a sigh from his lips. “The commander of Blackwatch.”

Hanzo watches him carefully. “Your commander.”

“Yeah.” McCree shrugs as he leans on the railing. Without his serape, his bare arms seem thin. “T’be honest, I hadn’t thought about any of them in years. Took a while to get over them. Nightmares, sometimes. Especially about Ana.”

Moving closer, Hanzo peers at his face, noting the tiredness is worse up close. “You’ve never spoken of them.”

“Didn’t think it was relevant.” He glances at Hanzo, smirking faintly. “They were dead.”

Hanzo frowns. “And now they are not.”

What that means is still uncertain. Hanzo can tell Jesse doesn’t know what it means either. He doubts any of Overwatch’s current members know. A strange event during even stranger times of change.

Hanzo knows what it is like, however, to see ghosts live and walk. He doesn’t know the extent of what Jesse feels, however. He only knows the grief, the guilt, the self-hatred, he felt when Genji came to him. The denial is the worst--because if the ghost is real, then his crimes are no longer in the past. If the ghost is an illusion, all is lost once more.

Jesse is strong, however, and not plagued by those same guilts. Hanzo knows there is some anyway, but Jesse, he has come to learn, is a survivor made possible by extreme adaption.

The two stand there, side by side, and Hanzo can still feel the tension roiling off Jesse’s body. He looks up expectantly when he feels Jesse turn to look at him. 

“Hell of a way to meet the parents,” Jesse says, with a lopsided grin, apologetic and perhaps embarrassed. 

It’s a joke, a distraction, but Hanzo doesn’t laugh. He observes his partner carefully. Jesse looks out at the horizon, an almost silent shrug. There is only the distant sound of the sea to fill the space around them.

“In all fairness,” Hanzo says after a moment, “you would not have liked my father either.”

It’s not what Jesse expects, clearly, because he turns and stares at Hanzo like he had said something shocking. Jesse then breaks into a laugh, reaching out to grasp Hanzo’s shoulder. His hand is warm, as it always is, and Hanzo watches him fondly.

“You are somethin’ else, Hanzo,” Jesse says.

_ And you are something special _ , Hanzo thinks. 

“Thanks for coming for me,” Jesse says, smiling at Hanzo, his eyes warm and full of a sort of kindness that Hanzo is still getting used to seeing come his way.

The way he says it is so earnest. True gratefulness. Hanzo wants to tell him that he’s a fool for thanking him, but he has learned in their short time together already that this is just who Jesse is.

“Always,” he says, making Jesse laugh again and duck his head, sheepish in a way the cowboy almost never is.

He thinks about carnivals, and rooftop missions, and Jesse, and it feels  _ right _ .

Hand enclosing around Jesse’s, Hanzo decides this is exactly where he ought to be.

  
  


 

**The End.**  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to say I'll write more in this line of fics (aka more sequels), but I can't promise anything, since my life is literally work and grad school at the moment, sooo no promises. :c I hope you enjoyed this one regardless!


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